It appears that some of the hard work by conservatives these last few years is paying off.

While watching the election returns on Fox News Tuesday night, a specific conversation caught my attention. The host turned to where Karl Rove was sitting and asked him about the candidates the GOP had in this election and why they were winning.

Rove said that some time back, the benefactor for Crossroads Grassroots Political Strategies (Crossroads GPS), Rove's right wing super PAC, needed to recruit and help more conservative candidates. In other words, the candidates they were helping needed to be more to the right than their current crop.

This perked my ears up for obvious reasons. Rove has long been an operator within the establishment wing of the GOP and many times butted heads with TEA Party types. The fact that he and his benefactor sought to move the party farther right is indicative of just how important the rallies in 2009 were to initiate fixing the problem in Washington and within the GOP itself.

Its taken quite a downhill slide to get folks like Rove to "see the light" but, all in all, it worked.

While many were upset at various TEA Party groups for allowing the establishment to infiltrate and overrun them (Newt comes to mind), it looks as if the rubbing elbows with them has paid off. For now.

The biggest threat, as its always been, to the TEA Party is from within. Many Libertarians joined the TEA Party movement, largely because of the fiscal philosophy, and have now taken over various TP groups around the country. As concerned conservatives tired and gradually released control of those groups, the Ron Paulers were right there to take over, and have. They've also taken over several county GOP groups, some of them very large and influential, and will remain in control of those until conservatives decide to quit sitting on their hands and take it back.

You might wonder that I've basically talked about two different things in this post, and I have.

The issue is, conservatives need to change the focus, while not entirely ignoring the establishment, and fight another battle.. Getting the establishment wing of the party to listen and act accordingly is happening right now. We cannot, however, allow the Libertarians to define the conservative base of the party.

Right this moment, we have people in leadership positions within the TEA Party and county GOPs that believe in legalizing marijuana, withdrawing our entire military to within our borders and taking away the authority of the police to arrest lawbreakers.

Now that we are getting closer to defining the GOP as a truly conservative party again, do we want the Libertarians to define a platform that goes against the principles of the majority of the party?

The election results on Tuesday showed just how few voters feel libertarians can help this country. Nearly every vote tally I saw nationally had the Libertarian candidate at 2% or less. In South Carolina, Trey Gowdy's only opponent was a Libertarian candidate and got 15% of the vote to 85% for Gowdy. I'll let you guess how many of that 15% were democrats.

Do not lose the ground beneath you while repairing the roof. A solid foundation is necessary and that foundation is eroding quietly.